


An Ineffable Bastard Of A Country

by phinnia



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22484542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phinnia/pseuds/phinnia
Summary: So I said to myself one evening absently, 'if Good Omens was set in Canada, the Bentley would only play Rush, except when she was in a bad mood, and then she'd play Nickleback all the time'.    And now I've had to do it, you see.    Fic so far contains:  my opinions about the French, Toronto real estate prices, and Alberta's conservative party.  More to come.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

Peter Ustinov said that Toronto was New York run by the Swiss.

That is technically true - he did say that.

The late Robin Williams made a joke about God making the Canadians first, making them perfect in every way, and then he smiled and said 'just wait until you see the neighbors I've given them.' 

That was even more true. God was doing a male form that day, so Robin called Them He and that was good enough for starters.

It all began on a wall by a hockey rink, a few hundred klicks north by northwest of cottage country. There were maple trees, of course. It was late in what would eventually be October. 

There was an angel all dressed in white furs leaning against the wall of the rink. Then a large black and white Canada Goose landed next to him.

"Well, all that went down like a lead balloon, eh?" said the goose.

"Sorry, what?" The angel said, looking confused.

"Said that went down like a lead balloon." The goose transformed into a human form, dressed in close-fitting mink furs, with long red curls falling back in a mullet from his face. "Name's Crawley."

"Aziraphale." The angel pushed his hair back into his light blue toque and smiled.

"Sound like you're from back East somewheres."

"Somewhere, yeah." Aziraphale nods, and remembers how he got shifted here from his former assignment after the angel in Fisheries - Sandalphon, lazy bugger, fisheries was nothing right now - had him sent to this new Upper Canada area. 

"You had a big goalie stick, eh?"

"What?"

"You did! I saw you, down in there with it, eh? With them humans."

"Gave it away."

"Ya _what_?"

"I said I gave it away, ya hosehead! And I said don't let nobody catch ya here 'fore ya freeze yer darn keesters off." He looked over at Crowley with colour-change-lake-shore-blue-eyes. 

The demon laughed, a half-goose-honk of a laugh, and shook his hair out under his hood. 

They watched the Zamboni travel over the freezing ice, between maples. 

It began to snow. It had not snowed before, even though there was snow on the ground. It was a myth that there was always snow on the ground in Canada. However, here in Eden Rink, there had been snow before, and there was snow now, and there would be snow later. 

The angel extended his wing over the demon to shield him from the coming squall. 

***

Canada's _really_ big.

Almost as big as Russia and less likely to interfere in American elections (at least people _think_ that). So it does make sense that Crawley and Aziraphale don't see each other for a while. 

It gets bigger. Mostly thanks to the British, who are invading most of the planet right now, but also, sadly, thanks to the French, who will grab a toehold in Lower Canada. This will eventually grow in New Brunswick and Quebec and despite many attempts at secession, some of which were some of Hell's best work (well, Hell and the Parti Quebecois, which are almost the same) _the French will just never leave_. 

In present-day downtown Toronto, at the corner of Church and Wellesley, right in the heart of the Toronto queer neighborhood, there is a bookshop of indeterminate age. The bookshop proprietor is a stout, fussy, professorial type who wears chinos, sensible shoes, and sky blue check-print flannel shirts, always tucked in. He has little round glasses and white-blonde hair, tucked under a light blue knitted toque. 

There is never any parking in front of the bookshop. Most people take the subway. But by some miracle, a space opens, just as a black, effortlessly shiny jeep stops in front of it, and a tall, gangly human-shaped being got out. It poked its head curiously into every little thing as it passed by, lifted something large out of the back of the jeep, and went inside the bookstore.

"Aaangel." Crawley (who was now going by Crowley) shouted.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale shouts from the back. "Bring any beer?"

"Did I bring any beer, he asks me." Crowley rolls his eyes. "Of course I brought beer."

"Well, I never know. Last time we ended up drinking that American piss the Chinese place had."

"That was only 'cause the Beer Store was out of Labatt's, you cretin." Crowley slumps down on the backroom sofa, looking around at the shabby cottage chic of the whole aesthetic. He puts his feet up on the relentlessly blue-and-black-checked sofa.

"Hoser." Aziraphale says, semi-affectionately, and swats his feet down. 

"I brought you Timmy's donuts." Crowley says, a slight smile twitching on the edge of his face. 

"Did you get me a coffee?"

"Yes, yes, I got you a coffee, extra large, double double, like always." He hands him a sky-blue aluminum travel mug which remains miracously clean in the Jeep at all times, just for Aziraphale's coffees. "Put some Crown Royal in mine." He passes over his own similar jet-black mug. "And don't slack on it, either, eh?"

The angel quirked one eyebrow up curiously and sloshed a good bit of booze in the cup. "Oh?"

Crowley took the mug back and drank half, jerking his chin towards the floor. "Hastur and Ligur called. They want to see me in the morning."

Crowley, like most truly evil-but-not-quite-so-evil-so's-you'd-notice-it-really Canadians, worked for one of the six major banks. (Well, there are more than six now, but originally there were six, before the banking industry had been deregulated.) He worked for one we shall call Banque du Quebec, in the Loans department, lending money from one area of the government to another area of the government and he had a stupidly large stocks portfolio and could actually afford an apartment in downtown Toronto. (This was more a reflection on Toronto real estate prices than on Crowley's portfolio. Those were truly Hellish.) 

Hastur and Ligur were Crowley's bosses of record. They were significantly more evil than Crowley had ever been. Crowley had never really been _evil_ as such, just kind of ... well, he asked a lot of questions, which was what had led to him getting thrown out of Heaven in the first place.

Heaven was a bit like Alberta under the Conservatives then. Shut up, don't ask questions, and keep your head down, you might come out in the next election.

Not that it's much better now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a baby in a sealskin wrap delivered to a residential school. 
> 
> Yes, the thing with the soapstone carving actually happened.
> 
> A Caesar is similar to a Bloody Mary except it contains Clamato juice and is in my opinion horrible.

The next morning, Crowley was lounging at his desk on Bay Street, reading the Globe and Mail (or as most of Hell calls it, and indeed large parts of Canada, the Old and Mail). That was where all the best stock listings were, so it was expected. Behind it, of course, he was reading the comics. (He'd always liked _Better or for Worse_ best, but he'd never actually admit that.) He has his feet up on the desk.

"Crowley!" A voice shouts from a back room.

Crowley gets up from the desk and goes into the back. He grabs a copy of the _National Post_ off of someone's desk on the way back there. (Hastur and Ligur _love_ the National Post, and they _worship_ Conrad Black, who is _definitely_ evil.)

Hastur and Ligur are wearing matching ebony suits from Spier Mackay. Ligur has dark skin, black hair, strangely pale eyes, and a weird fascination with chameleons. 

Hastur is pale, blonde, has black pits for eyes, and has a thing about frogs. 

Neither of them _like_ Crowley, but they both respect him as much as demons and bankers can respect each other, because he handles a tonne of money, and he's got _contacts_ that go way, way back, and way, way up. (Or possibly way, way down: it's difficult to know which direction you're heading with bankers or indeed, demons.)

"Hail Satan." Ligur says.

"Hail Satan." Hastur echoes.

"Uh, hey, eh." Crowley sort of waves at them with the hand that isn't holding the newspapers.

"Let us recount the deeds of the day." Hastur intones. "I have tempted a priest. He has seen the flesh of beautiful women, walking in the sunlight. Within ten years we shall have him."

"I have procured great wealth for our Master's coffers." Ligur replies, stealing a cigar out of Hastur's humidor.

"Broke into the Prime Minister's house this morning." Crowley says proudly. "Moved some shit around."

Hastur and Ligur look at him in confusion. 

"Oh, _come on_. You think it's easy, getting around all that security? Besides, I almost got knocked out with a fuckin' soapstone carving, eh!?" He wrinkles his nose. "Gotta watch out for that wife, she's got quite the left on her."

"It is Time, Crowley." Hastur says, ignoring this business about the Prime Minister's wife.

"Got it, large double double for me, and black for you, and how do you take yours, Ligur?" Crowley picks up an expensive pen and scribbles down a coffee order across the headlines and the Leader of the Opposition's face. 

"We are not speaking of _coffee_ , Crowley." Ligur says, a little irritated frown between his eyes.

"No?"

"It is _time._ " Hastur says again, and picks up a large bundle of fur blankets in a sealskin bundle from behind his desk. 

He sniffs the object, makes a face, and hands it to Crowley.

Crowley turns as pale as the first snowfall. "No."

"Yes, Crowley." Ligur says.

"But - but - why me, eh?" he stammers. 

"Armageddon is nigh." Hastur says. "Make haste and deliver him to the appointed place. He smells of poo."

"Yeah, I can smell him from here, eh." Crowley mutters.

Ligur holds out a six-page contract. Crowley signs it hastily and runs out of the office, carrying the sealskin bundle. 

"Shit! Shit, shit, shit!" Crowley shouts at the downtown Toronto traffic.

It semi-obligingly moves out of his way. This is more due to miracles than anything else. Bay Street midday traffic moves for no one, demon or otherwise, especially when you're dealing with the on-ramp to the 401. 

The baby in the sealskin wrappings looks up at him with calm eyes.

"What did I do to deserve this?" He shouts at the interior of the jeep.

Nothing answers. He turns on the radio. The live version of 'Working Man' plays. 

"Easy for you to say." He scowls at the car.

Crowley takes the baby on this fine, blustery morning to a small town called Brantford. Brantford is only remarkable due to the residential school which is situated there. He takes the 401 and the 403 all the way there, blasting Rush out the windows and wishing for the sweet release of death, or minimally at least a quick fuck and a blunt. (Legalizing pot had been one of his most brilliant ideas. It helped on the days when he just couldn't take the fact that Aziraphale would probably never sleep with him, ever).

So he left the baby with the bumbling staff of this residential school and sighed.

"Oh, what a sweet baby!" One of the adults says. "Is this - is this him? Is this ... Our Dark Lord and Master?"

"Sure is." Crowley handed her the sealskin wrap. "Didn't have any diapers."

"Oh, dear. Well, we'll have to fix that." The nurse takes the baby off towards a room and Crowley drives off in a streak of darkness towards Toronto. He needs a beer. And a blunt. And a coupla crullers. And Aziraphale to know what's going on.

On the way to Toronto the Jeep played 'YYZ' and 'Entre Nous' and 'Jacob's Ladder' and he growls at her, but not with too much ire, because he doesn't want to engage her Nickelback Mode today. He knows what she's trying to say, after all. 

He stumbles in the bookshop door, looking like Getty Lee on less than an hour's sleep. 

"Crowley! Siddown, ya great eejit. Ya look like death." Aziraphale bundles him up in a large quilt he'd probably bought at a yard sale. (He had actually purchased it at a fundraiser for queer youth.)

"I had to deliver a baby." he says hollowly, staring at his black shoes.

"A _baby_? I thought you were in investment banking?"

"I am, ya dumbtwit! I mean _that baby_ , eh?."

"Oh, dear Lord and all her little green apples." Aziraphale mutters, and wrings his hands. "I didn't know it was ... you know, then."

"Yeah, it's _then_."

Aziraphale makes a run out to the nearest Hortons and gets them coffees. Crowley just sits and stares into space and drinks glass after glass of Aziraphale's Crown Royal and is thinking about breaking out the stuff to mix up Caesars. It seems to be a Caesar kind of afternoon.


End file.
